The students got this opportunity to receive an expert talk from Mr Niranjan Ayyar H.R Manager at ASA & Associates LLP on 3rd August 2014. Mr Ayyar introduced the talk with the story of a blind beggar. A copy righter passes by a blind beggar with a sign that reads ‘I am blind. Please help”. But he is largely ignored by the crowd. The copy righter goes to the blind man and changes the sign. From the next day, the blind man receives lot of donations from the crowd. The sign now reads “It’s the first day of spring and I can’t see it.”

Through this story Mr. Ayyar wants to accentuate on the importance of portraying the right image to the target audience. An interesting personality profiling exercise followed wherein the students were asked to mark their behavior under different situations and then there emerged four types of personalities. These personalities and their characteristic features are as mentioned below-

D-Directing-Dominant, Authoritative

I-Influencing-Friendly, Motivating

S-Steady-Peaceful, Team Players

C-Cautious-Stability, Process oriented

The whole group of students were divided amongst the different groups that they happened to project. It was a very interesting exercise as the students got to know what kind of personality type they belonged to at that time and how similar they were with their peers in the same group.

Mr. Ayyar emphasized on the need to portray an image that suits the organization by moulding our personality. He said that projected personality was equal to how we communicate in a business setup. He threw light on the importance of etiquette, body language and non-verbal communication. The audience got an understanding of some basic yet often ignored mistakes that people in an organization commit that leaves a bad impression on the management.

Typical examples like avoiding slangs and jargons in a business setup. He also explained the importance of body language in creating an impression beyond what we speak. This was followed by a TED talk video by Amy Cuddy. The central argument of the video shown was how our non-verbal aspects can have a significant influence in our behaviour and as a result, on our personality.

The speaker then shows many examples to prove her arguments. For example, when people take high power poses, their testosterone level goes up, cortisol level comes down and they are able to react to a riskier situation in a better way as compared to people with low power poses. Just like how our minds can change our body, she goes on to show how our bodies also change our minds. The title of the presentation was ‘Can you fake it till you make it?’ The video was very inspirational and insightful as it dealt into nuances of human behavior that can shape our success or downfall.
Mr. Ayyar encouraged people to research on body language and on non-verbal cues to create the right impression within the organization. The presentation was followed by Q&A session with the students. He explained how HR as a role is evolving from a support function to a strategic function that involves knowledge of end to end delivery of the organization. He also said that HR is now beginning to evolve as a link between the organization and employees.

The session was highly interactive. Students at TAPMI got to know many things about personality profiling and projected personality. The session ended with a token of appreciation from the college to Mr.Ayyar and we hope to see him in TAPMI again for such sessions in the future.